MassiveMoonHeh

If you were ever looking to do any real research into famous blades or sword smiths then the absolute first stop needs to be the Dictionary of Famous Fantasy Swords. This website is an absolute treasure trove for the sword ethusiast, collecting information and data from every major source and collating it in one place. History, Provenance, National Treasures, Imperial Treasures, Famous People, Daimyo & Samurai Families, Famous Swords, etc. Just hit translate on your browser (Chrome should do it automatically) and you are away. Become on of my favourite websites. If you have not discovered it already definitely go have a look.

Over at the Tokugawa Art Museum their swords are displayed in a more traditional academic style but the images are large so that is great! 1. Kuniyuki 2. Rai Magotarō 3. Kiku Ichimonji 4. Muramasa 5. Hōchō Masamune 6. Gotō Toshihrō 7. Mitsutada 8. Masatsune 9. Toshirō 10. Namazuo Toshirō 11. Hōchō Toshirō 12. Tsuda Tōtoumi Nagamitsu Fine example of Toshirō Yoshimitsu blades here. Lovey to see up close.

Also found a few more swords over at the Tokyo National Museum: 1. Osafune Motoshige 2. Motoshige's Koshirae 3. Kikko Sadamune 4. Tomonari 5. Koryu Kagemitsu

The Tachibana Museum have done a fantastic job of putting together a small online exhibition of some of the museum's important blades entitled: Japanese Swords in the Collection of the Tachibana Family I rather enjoyed it as they explain via audio some of their special swords. They even have an interesting "signed" Sadamune. They also have another online exhibition entitled:Higo Tsuba Sword Guard again with fantastically large images. It appears they have also gone and put most of the museum's other artefacts online, this includes 56 sword related items, including Koshirae, Tsuba, Tōsōgu, and blades by; Yoshimitsu, Sadamune, Kanemitsu, Nagamitsu Ken, Kunitsugu the Raikiririmaru and one of my favourites was their Gō Yoshihiro that I certainly have not seen before as it appears to not be papered but it does look a lovely example - I am dubbing it the Tachibana-Gō. They also have lovely examples of old Tachibana Family Armour in this exhibition, entitled Treasure of Daimyo Tachibana. One of the big advantages of uploading these images here via Google Arts and Culture is the ability to click on the images and zoom in an out which is a darn side better than most photos available elsewhere online. I certainly hope other museum's follow suit - this is was a real treat!

Oh, ok - that makes a lot of sense, it sounds like the Shogun side of the Tokugawa family will continue but the Tokugawa Yoshinobu (last Shogun) line will end? Thank you.

Just read a fascinating article in the Times... The current head of the Tokugawa family, Miki Yamagishi, has advised that when she dies so will the family line and the title of Duke/Dutchess Tokugawa will cease to be... She has made a decision to pass on the Dutchy and will give the Tokugawa archive to the Tokyo National Museum and so end the family line. So bring to an end to the story of the incredible family that led feudal Japan for 250 years. It is fascinating read. A book is apparently coming out shortly about it. Will be worth a read. https://www.thetimes.com/article/277d6e47-15aa-4585-bce7-c0d0ab37db98

For all the research you do into this space I reckon we could wrangle up a honorary doctorate for you! 😉

Drop Hoshi a DM, I am sure he will look to add them if he can.

To add NihontoWatch app icon on Android: Open nihontowatch.com on your phone, click on the three-dot menu and select Add to home screen.

My new favourite app.

I just read that in Finland, PhD graduates get a awarded a Top Hat and Sword with their degree... The top hat apparently symbolises academic freedom and independence, while the sword represents the responsibility to defend truth and scientific knowledge. So I am fact checking on my favourite Sword forum... @Jussi Ekholm is this true, it seems old world crazy enough to be true but does it really still happen? if it does is there a specific sword you need you get awarded or do you get to chose your own sword? Perhaps nice katana to write off on tax cause it was part of my degree. Or does each university have their own specific sword? Or is it only a specific university? So many questions. If true it might be time for me to do a doctorate in Finland! 🤩

Chandle your work is first class building on Jussi's incredible efforts. As you know I am a massive fan of this project and have already played with this quite a bit - I am excited to see it when images stat coming through... cannot wait! To @Hoshi, @nulldevice & @Jussi Ekholm, thank you so much! You three are all a credit to this space! The effort you three have put into your projects are just an incredible step forward for this hobby making it a lot easier to navigate than ever before! Wow 2026 - we are only 49 days in and this is already proving to be an awesome year for being a Nihonto enthusiast!

The Japan Times wrote an article on Thursday about the recent sword "boom" in Japan. You can read it here.

This one of my favourites - it shows actors Kataoka Nizaemon VIII as Rai Kunitoshi (Right), Ichikawa Danzô VI as Gorō Nyūdō Masamune (Centre) and Onoe Waichi II as his fictional son (Segare) Dankurô (Left). It is by Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III) for the play Date Moyô Somete Kisaragi at the Nakamura Theatre in 1858.

Brian - monetising a site like this is a must - it is just to valuable to be a charity (Unless of course someone rich is willing to sponsor it) - but it needs funding! 1. Advertising via Google adverts is one way to go. Members get to view the site minus the ads. 2. Creating a members only area of high resolution blades as previously suggested would be enormously beneficial but that involves all members contributing and some may not be willing to list what they own so perhaps allow contribution anonymously - that is you get to decide if you put your name against your blade or not when you list it and blades uploaded anonymously do not have any tags back to the uploader. 3. Gold members do not need to pay a fee to list items for sale? Non-members get 5 free adverts but need to pay or become a member after that? 4. Gold members get access to sales items 12 hours before non-members is a great idea - if the seller is willing to do that? 5. Gold Member Dealers always have their posts at the top above non-dealers. 6. Dealers and Sellers regardless of membership should have a review status so that you can see if they are reputable. 7. Membership discounts to Gold Member Dealers so that we support our Gold Member dealers? This also becomes an incentive for getting dealers to become Gold Member Dealers. 8. Membership discounts to NBTHK membership or their publications? Has this ever been discussed with NBTHK? To try encourage more members going gold and get more NBTHK members? 9. Limit access to older posts in searches for non-paying members. That is they have access to 1 month of data but show them that there is data available but it is blurred out? Most recent posts are always free. 10. Free downloads section is only available to Gold members? 11. Deals with Gold member authors who are writing books to get discounts for their latest books for Gold Members? 12. Deals with museums who hold exhibitions to give Gold Members' discount rates? 13. Exclusive events for gold members - such as private viewings or access to swords at various museums, sword shows or private collections that allows gold members to a special event where those who attend are able to pick up some of the top rarely touched swords and view them properly. Now that would be exciting and worth the membership just for opportunities like this. Most of these have been mentioned before. I am not sure about a forum shop selling only merchandise is that valuable in terms of generating revenue unless you have plans to open a proper shop and sell things related to Nihonto - but that is not the business.

Does anyone know if NBTHK have ever suggested they would put their sword directory online? I know I would pay to get an annual membership to that. I suspect majority/ everyone here would. A NBTHK Juyo & Tokubetsu Juyo Shinsa book costs around 20,000 yen each. That is 60,000 yen every two years for two Juyo and one TB books or 30,000 yen a year on average. But I am not sure how many of these books they print or sell annually and therefore do not actually know how much they make from this exercise. Current Japanese NBTHK membership costs 12,000 yen and foreign membership costs 19,200 yen - I believe this use to cost more because they sent mail internationally but I am also advised that all of this is now online since covid? So I am not sure how many members they have - a few I suspect but not as many as are members registered with clubs and forums such as NMB. If they provided the NBTHK sword database to members I suspect they could probably ask 25,000 or 2,500/month (Price of a Netflix subscription) across the board and negate the need for local and international snail mail. As this is a subscription to an educational service subscribers could probably also get a tax deduction for this in most countries. I think this could really take off if they did a deal where sword clubs and forums are allowed to apply for association status, so that the club can get subscriptions to the NBTHK at a discount rate (20% less perhaps) that would allow the club or forum to fund their activities through the difference between the subscription and the discount. It would bring in some much needed revenue for the clubs and forums, that currently struggle, it would bring in more money to NBTHK and the data access would be super helpful for the community. A win, win for everyone really. There is also opportunity for the NBTHK to license their images and sell them if people wanted to use them outside of the NBTHK database. They could also charge the retailers more (like 100,000 a year) to allow them to use the NBTHK data, images & certificates in their sales advertising. It just makes economic and commercial sense. I am not sure they get anything from the retailers who scan in and currently use the NBTHK certificates on their websites? Does anyone know more about this? Surely something like this must have been discussed in the higher circles of the NBTHK in the past? But I am very aware of how reluctant the Japanese are to online usage especially in the Nihonto space where the average age is not exactly young. The Japanese also appear to love paper work, snail mail and red tape - in a way these last 30 years or the "lost" 30 years have seen a lot of Japan left in the 90s. So I am aware this is not a small exercise and would involve a significant amount of work, infrastructure and mental realignment to set this up but I am also sure that I am not the only one who wants this - the Nihonto community is desperate for high resolution images. It would be so good to have a single source for this information - the benefit analysis & growth of this space would be absolutely enormous. If the NBTHK are not willing to do this due to the size or uncertainty of the project then perhaps there is an opportunity for a private institution to exclusively license this data from the NBTHK and on sell it themselves to the community? Of course if there was a really rich benefactor who would be willing to fund this and make this incredible data available for free, then I will also not object. Morning thoughts.

Jussi, as always an absolute pleasure to see a post from yourself, whenever you do I know I am going to learn something! Thank you. Yes, I was surprised to see the price of the Norishige and especially the Kanenaga. If true that makes these two blades some of the most expensive blades ever sold. Like, ever! And the Kanenage in particular could lay claim to the most expensive blade ever sold in a public forum in the modern era, but they seem to only include both these blades in a list in the article as an appendix, or end note. How is it possible that a these two blades could sell for this much and both get forgotten in the sands of history? So yes, it is very strange and I would love to find out more.

Marketing 101 - you are not wrong.

At $676,500 in today's money - I like your definition of second tier! Would generally agree that this could be possible except for the fact that just below the Yoshihiro tachi is one of the other Tenka-Sansaku - a Awataguchi Yoshimitsu tanto. Both may have a both been meito but they are not from the Kyōhō Meibutsu-cho which is what I would say the meibutsu refers to. Also, these swords were described as swords of major importance and none of the other Yoshihiro's have been elevated to that category... yet. Also, happy to be proven wrong here... would love to see a Soshu or Senjuin sold at these kind of prices.